Thursday, 10 October 2013

In the Middle of Nowhere… when career overtakes family

By
Anote Ajeluorou

For
many a woman in Africa’s strong patriarchal system, the lure of career to prove
a point that women too have arrived and that they are a force to reckon with can
be compelling. However, this can sometimes be at the expense of family, which
becomes the inevitable price to pay for career ascendancy. More often than not,
such price becomes too steep for even the most strong-willed but by the time
realisation dawns, it would have been too late, leaving behind a trail of
sadness and regrets at what might have been.

This is the tragic scenario in the novel of Ghanaian
Ruby Yayra Goka’s In the Middle of
Nowhere (Kwadwoan Publishing, Accra; 2011). The work is exhilarating in
exploring the soured filial bond between mother and daughter. I happened upon
the work by chance at the last Nigerian International Book Fair in Lagos. I had
often wondered what level of publishing was going on in neighbouring West
African countries.

Poor infrastructure in Africa’s publishing
sector has for long made it difficult for hard copies of books to cross borders,
especially since Heinemann stopped its pioneering African Writers Series (AWS),
which Chinua Achebe edited. So, I happily bought a copy curious to feel Ghana’s
fictive pulse. It turned out a rewarding experience, as Goka’s creative power
in mapping fellow women’s psychological disposition, in exploring their inner
struggles as they battle to come to terms with soured love, loneliness,
rejection, regrets and resignation. It’s the height of man’s fickleness that
finally leads to a triumph of the spirit over adversary.

Elaine is Catherine’s only daughter begat in
loveless circumstances in the latter’s girlish love and marriage to Anthony
Grant, who eventually chickens out of a marriage contracted without his
parents’ consent. Elaine becomes a scar in Catherine’s life, but she manages to
bring her up with her mother’s help at Elmina. But Catherine is a determined
young woman; she dusts herself up from the debacle of a runaway husband. She
applies herself to her career in law practice and soon rises through the ranks
to the position of judge.

Elaine grows into a promising young girl with
a bright future. But then another man, a wolf in sheep’s clothing ,comes into
the picture. Uncle Ato is no brother of hers, but she has come to regard him as
father figure since she was a child. He pays her way through college and
university, even helping with a foreign education in the bargain. But Uncle Ato
has been bidding his time; he pounces just when Elaine is ripe and rapes her.
Elaine is forced to drop out of university to have the seed of his evil
violation. Her daughter, Kuku becomes her only consolation.

Meanwhile, Elaine’s mother, Catherine, now a
judge, is incensed; she would not be grandmother to a bastard, as it would mar
her rising career. Without the slightest motherly feeling towards her own
daughter, she drives Elaine out of her home to face the uncertain life of
pregnancy from the vilest source. Elaine falls back on her grandmother at
Elmina in whom she finds the motherly love Catherine denies her.

Elaine, however, soon has her baby, Kuku, who
turns a precocious little one. She becomes Elaine’s life. But Elaine decides to
leave Accra, a qualified dentist, as her boyfriend, too, turns against her and
begins dating her close friend. She goes far into the countryside, where no one
knows her story; she wants healing from her unknown, new location. But here she
runs into another medical personnel, Farouk, a widower still mourning his late
Cuban wife. A combination of events throws the two medical personnel together
in Sandema, a remote northern part of Ghana.

But it’s a love fraught with landmines of
sorts. Farouk’s wife’s loss is etched too deeply into his subconscious; he
finds it hard to let go. Elaine is uncertain whether to let herself go just yet
in her barren outpost after her frightening experience with the man she called
Uncle. It is the most uneasy relationship two mature people can ever find themselves.
But with news of Catherine’s terminal illness, things are about to change one
way or the other. Elaine does not want to see her sick mother, who has achieved
the height of her career, having become a chief judge but for whom her only
daughter is a stranger!

Finally, grief brings Elaine and Farouk
together at Elmina, with Farouk also learning to let go of his late wife, and
learning to see Elaine in different light. But would they find love again?

Goka’s In
the Middle of Nowhere is a remarkable work of fiction. It’s a precise
portraiture of the needless soured relationship between mother and daughter.
Catherine’s life is a fine portrait of the career woman who lost touch with
reality. She pays dearly for it. Also, Uncle Ato’s rape of Elaine comes to fore
when he is exposed for the villain that he is; it ruins his political ambition of
being elected to high office.